lliner, who was received into the household, in spite of the custom
which kept persons of her description out of it, afforded her the
opportunity of introducing some new fashion every day. Up to this time
the Queen had shown very plain taste in dress; she now began to make it a
principal occupation; and she was of course imitated by other women.

All wished instantly to have the same dress as the Queen, and to wear the
feathers and flowers to which her beauty, then in its brilliancy, lent an
indescribable charm. The expenditure of the younger ladies was
necessarily much increased; mothers and husbands murmured at it; some few
giddy women contracted debts; unpleasant domestic scenes occurred; in many
families coldness or quarrels arose; and the general report was,--that the
Queen would be the ruin of all the French ladies.

Fashion continued its fluctuating progress; and head-dresses, with their
superstructures of gauze, flowers, and feathers, became so lofty that the
women could not find carriages high enough to admit them; and they were
often seen either stooping, or holding their heads out of the windows.
Others knelt down in order to manage these elevated objects of ridicule
with less danger.

[If the use of these extravagant feathers and head-dresses had continued,
say the memoirs of that period very seriously, it would have effected a
revolution in architecture. It would have been found necessary to raise
the doors and ceilings of the boxes at the theatre, and particularly the
bodies of carriages. It was not without mortification that the King
observed the Queen's adoption of this style of dress: she was never so
lovely in his eyes as when unadorned by art. One day Carlin, performing
at Court as harlequin, stuck in his hat, instead of the rabbit's tail, its
prescribed ornament, a peacock's feather of excessive length. This new
appendage, which repeatedly got entangled among the scenery, gave him an
opportunity for a great deal of buffoonery. There was some inclination to
punish him; but it was presumed that he had not assumed the feather
without authority.-NOTE BY THE EDITOR.]

Innumerable caricatures, exhibited in all directions, and some of which
artfully gave the features of the Queen, attacked the extravagance of
fashion, but with very little effect. It changed only, as is always the
case, through the influence of inconstancy and time.

The Queen's toilet was a masterpiece of etiquette; everything wa